Chapter 10
I open my eyes and Zabuza just finished the last clone. I go threw a few handsigns. "Water movetation!" I yell and a big cobra raises out of the water. Zabuza prepares for it to attack him, but It strIkes the water clone in half. I us shinzon and teleport back to the group.
I collapse to one knee and breath heavy. I lift my head to watch the fight. Zabuza and Kakashi are running in a circle. Zabuza is slow because of his large cut on his chest from my shark form. They both stop and go through the same Jutsu and when they finish two water dragons appears out of the lake and crash into each other.
They again go and start going through hand signs. Before Zabuza could finish Kakashi complete the set "Giant Vortex Jutsu!" A stream of water start to circle in front of him and starts to move faster. When the jutsu stops Zabuza is slammed against a tree.
"Can you see the future?" He asks.
"Yes and your futures is death." Kakashi say. Just before he ends him senbons slam into the body and Zabuza falls to the ground. I force myself up. When a hunter ninja is standing in front of us.
"Thank you I have been following him forever." The mask ninja says. I narrow my eyes.
"Who are you?" I demand.
"I'm a hunter ninja from the mist." The ninja says.
"Shut up you Baka you don't know anything!" Sakura yells.
"No way. No village is only going to send one ninja to kill one of the seven swordsman. Plus you used senbons to kill and trust me I try using those I know it's very difficult to kill using them." I say ignoring her. I take a deep breath. "So who are you?" I demand. The water starts to rise as I prepare for an attack.
"I got to go." The mysterious ninja says before going through hand signs and the two ninja ninjas vanish.
"Good spotting Naruto." Kakashi says. I nod my head. "Let's continue…" before he could finish his sentence he collapses onto the ground. We run towards him. I checked for any cuts on him.
"Tazuna's you house close?" I ask and look at him. He nods his heads. "Then we can continue and carry him to the house so he can rest and recover his chakra." I say. I form a bubble around him and float him into the air. "Lead the way." I say.
"Who left you in charge?" Demanded Sasuke.
"Let's see I just lasted against an A rank ninja and can use the water around us as a weapon on its own. While Sakura can just freeze in battle and you can really only cast a week fireball that if Gato hired any other jounin ninja it wouldn't do anything. Plus I can kick both of your asses without breaking a sweat so that is why I'm taking charge." I tell them. He grinds his teeth in anger but he knows it's true. We start following Tazuna home.
We knock on the door. It opens and a women with long black hair answers it. "Dad!" She yells and pulls him into a hug.
"Sorry to interrupt but is there a room I can put him." I say pointing to Kakashi's unconscious body.
"Ya of course is he okay?" She asks as she leads to one of the rooms.
"Ya of course he's just tired from fighting earlier." I tell her. She nods her head.
"He can stay here." She points to a room.
"Thank you." I bow. She nods her head and leaves. I put him in a cot and sit on the floor as I think over the battle. Why didn't the mask ninja attack. I mean Kakashi wouldn't have lasted, and if she is partners with Zabuza I wouldn't have been able to fight after the fight with Zabuza and without my chakra being well controlled. Maybe she wants to heal Zabuza and then split us apart. Zabuza takes Kakashi and we fight. After they kill us the bridge builder would be almost certain to be dead since neither of the other two would last ten minutes with them. Plus I don't know anything about the ninja's abilities besides being good with senbons. Which could mean the person has medical knowledge and perfect accuracy to be able to hit pressure points with them. I think.
"Uuu." Shakes me out of my thoughts. I look up and Kakashi is looking at me. "Go get Sakura and Sasuke we have lots to discuss." He says. I nod my head and get up.
When I return both Sakura and Sakura sit close to sensei. I I set by the door. "Thanks to Naruto we know that the hunter ninja was a fake. Which can only mean that both of them are working together. Now normally I would ask for back up to either help or take our place but it would take them a few days and we wouldn't have the time…"
"But sensei you can't possibly fight both ninjas." Sakura says.
"I won't Naruto you can help with your abilities with water this would be our greatest asset to us. Which would leave your two to protect Tazuna incase one slips past us and we can't stop it. Which mean we will need to train." He says. We all nod.
"We should let you rest a little while longer before training." I say. He nods his head. The other two get up and leave. "Hey can I go out and start working on chakra control. During my fight with Zabuza I was able to hit him a few times and absorb a lot of chakra from him and it messed with my control." I tell him.
"That should be fine just don't do too much." He says.
"Hey did you copy the hidden mist jutsu I was wondering if I could learn it?" I asks. He nods head and tells me the hand signs for it.
"Thank you." I say and leave.
I find a good area near the ocean. "Shadow clone jutsu!" I yell and a thousands of clones appear. "Work on every chakra control technique we know." I order them. They nod their heads and get to work. I start to work on the mist jutsu.
"Hidden mist jutsu!" I yell and small amounts of mist starts to form. It should be thicker. I try again. This time it thickens just not fast enough since we are right next to a water source.
1 hour later
I hear back inside after finishing what I was training on I decided to work on my new sealing technique. This will come in handy against Zabuza. I think as I sit down and take out my notes on sealing.
When it's done the problem is that the seal is really big. If I use the smalirizing seal then the seal array will shrink and it can fit on a smaller piece of paper. I take the paper and head outside to test it out.
After a few tweaks the seal is finished and I heard back inside to see how Kakashi is doing.
When I get inside Kakashi is standing with crutches and he is reading his book. "Aw Kakashi you're up does that mean it's training time?" I asks.
"Yes Naruto it's time for us to head out." He says. The other two enter the room and we leave the house.
When we stopped we are in a small clearing with trees all around us. "So what type of training are we going to do?" I asks.
"Well there isn't much we can train in since we only have a week, so we're going to do chakra control." He says.
"How is that going to make me stronger?" Sasuke asks.
"Easy you won't waste so much chakra so you will have more to do more jutsus and the ones you do will be stronger." He answers. He opens his book. "Now I want you to climb a tree." He says.
"But how is that going to help us with chakra control?" Sakura asks.
"He means only using your chakra like I was doing yesterday when I was fighting with Zabuza and standing on water." I answer.
"Right Naruto." He says and the starts walking up the tree to the branch at the top. He then throws two kunais one at Sakura's feet and the other at Sasuke's feet.
"Wait why doesn't the dope have to do it?" Sasuke asks.
"Because he already knows knows how to. So Naruto that means when they are training uou have to protect Tazuna at the bridge." He says. I nod my head.
"Then Sensei do you have anything to teach me?" I asks.
"Maybe I have to check something. So let's go over there." He says and leaves the area. I follow him.
"Okay this should be good." He says and puts his book away. He then takes out a piece of paper. "Naruto this is chakra paper it will tell us about you element release and I know water is your main but I'm wondering if you have a second one." He says. I nod my head and take the piece of paper. "Now just channel chakra." He says.
I do and the piece of paper first became soaking wet then it splits into three pieces the first third the water evaporates. The second crinkles into a wet ball and the last third turns to dust, but then the first becomes wet again. I look at Kakashi and his mouth is open from what I can tell with his face mask. "My main is water and I have the other elements too." I says. He nods his head.
"Well good then that mean you can learn what I'm going to show you." He says. He goes through some hand signs and a small blue ball of electricity is sitting in his palm. It sounds like a bunch of birds flying. "This is a chadori the reason I'm teaching you this is because you may have to get through something when we have to fight Zabuza and his partner and I might not be able to help." He says. I nod my head. He then leaves to go check on the other two.
I start going through the hand signs. When I stop there is a small spark in my palm and then it vanishes. I need to add more chakra then. I say.
Two hours later
Several of the trees toppled over. I can use it with only three hand signs. I take a few deep breath and head back to the house before the sunset.
When I get inside the others are waiting in the living room. "Where the hell have you been!" Sakura yells.
"Outside training and mastering the jutsu Kakashi showed me." I says.
"You mastered it?" He asks.
"No I got it to be a few hand signs less but I'm still going to work on it." I tell him.
"That's interesting." He says. The other two just leave.
After a few minutes I ask him "hey Kakashi do you know any water manipulation exercises? I know I'm great at it but I was wondering if there was any that I could learn to do."
"That's a jounin level but you have a point that you already do water manipulation. I heard the second Hokage could pull water out of thin air I don't know anyone else who could. Water release is not common in our village." He says.
"Okay tomorrow I will work on making water come from thin air." I say and open my book on advanced seals.
When it's time for dinner we all sit down around the table. We were having a great dinner Tazuna and his daughter were laughing and they were smiling. "Why you're just going to die anyway!" Yells there kid Inari. "You aren't even part of this town. You live in a nice village none of you know what suffering and pain is!" He yells.
"Shoot up!" I slightly yell. I walk towards him. "You have no right to say that to anyone but Sakura. Look around your own town and tell me you are worse than the people have to bag on the street for food. Also you mom lost you dad too you know." I then point to Sasuke. "His entire clans was killed grandparents to little kids like yourself killed by his brother." I then point to Kakashi.
"His father committed suicide during the war because he decided to save teammates instead of completing a mission. Also his two teammates also died during that war and his sensei his father figure died too. So everyone who was like a regional family to him is gone." I say. Then point to myself. "Me you wouldn't last five seconds with my memories alone so your life is ten times better than ours. So stop crying you baby!" I yell the last part then walk out the room.
Kakashi's POV
Inari runs outside. I get up and follow him. "Don't take it too seriously." I tell him. He looks back at me in confusion. "His life is not an easy one. We found him four years after he was kidnapped from our village. A ex-ninja of ours does human experiments and did it to him. Also from what I have been told he has had to kill very early in life to survive. Not many people in our village will talk with him or will hangs out. In fact I think he really only has one true friend in the village. I guess what he said to you about not crying was what he told himself when he was younger." I say and look at him. His face is full of surprises.
"From what your mom and grandfather told us he's a lot like your father. What ever truly matters to him he will fight to the last breath to keep safe." I say and hand him the picture with his father's face ripped out and leave him to think.
Naruto's POV
I hate that what the kid said got to me. I mean who cares what he says I know my abilities and I know that that Gato man is a coward. I think to myself as I finish with the chadori. "How can I win tomorrow I mean even if I have to fight Zabuza I was barely able to keep up with him and he wasn't taking me seriously?" I ask myself.
"Easy cute the head of the snake and the body dies." Kyuubi says.
"What do you mean?" I asks.
"Easy kill Gato and the ninjas will have no money and no reason to fight you." He says.
"But what if someone else takes over and still will give them money?" I point out.
"Well then take the money. I mean it's not Gato it's his money that makes him powerful." He says.
"You're right." I say. I make two hundred clones. "Go find Gato's hidden base and when you do I want you to dispel but ten at a time." I tell them. They nod their heads and leave. I sit down and meditate to wait and conserve chakra until they find it.
Three hours later
All the clones have dispelled. I form an ice clone to wait here and act as a decoy until I'm back. I turn to mist and teleport back to where the clone found the base. It's well hidden. I form five shadow clones. They then use the transform jutsu and look like rats. They then run into the hideout. I should combine shadow clone's ability to transfer memory when destroyed with the other two clones. That way they will be able to take more than one hit and still stand. I think before all five rats puff and I know the entire layout. I enter the compound.
As I make my way to Gato's office which is in the middle of the hideout I check room by room.
After a few minutes and a few guards I hear voices in one of the rooms. "Don't fail me again Zabuza or I won't pay you." Says and angry voice the door handle starts to wiggle I turn into a puddle. A short middle age man with two wannabe swordsmen come out. The midget is holding his left wrist.
I stay in puddle form just in case one of the other ninjas come out. Which is a good idea because the hunter ninja comes out and heads down the hall. I unturn from my puddle state and walk into the room that they were in.
I look around and Zabuza is in the bed. He turns his head and he sees me. "Your that water monster." He says.
"Pretty much since you can't move I'm going to do something." I look for his sword which is on the other side of his bed. I walk over and take out my new seal array.
"What are you doing!?" He demands he tries to get up but can't.
"Kai!" I yell and the seal covers the sword the it retreats onto the floor and a dublica of Zabuza's sword is on the floor. I pick it up.
"What did you do?" He asks.
"I made a hundred percent copy of your sword and I'm going to learn how to wield it." I say and leave. I continue for a few minutes and I find what I have been looking for. I knock on the door.
"Come in!" Yells from inside. I open the door and walk in. The two swordsman have their swords slightly out. I let some of my water out and let it travel to them.
"Hello are you Gato?" I asks.
"Yes now how did you find this place, what do you want and who are you!" He demands.
"Well you see I'm the new owner of Gato industries," I tell him.
"You are." He starts laughing. "Kill him." He commands. That's when the water around the two swordsmen wrapped around them and then froze trapping them. I look back at him.
"Now sign this or die." I tell him and hand him the paper. I bring up Zabuza's blade to his neck to show that I'm willing to kill him. He signs the paper. I take it and look over it. "Good." I say I then seal it away and shunzu back to where my ice clone is. It crumbles when I appear. I lean back against one of the trees and look at the stars.
No one's POV
I walk around collecting medical herbs for Zabuza when I see the blue water ninja asleep by one of the trees. Zabuza said he copied his blade last night. Haku thinks to himself. I could kill him right now, but something about him reminds me of myself. I lean over and grabs his shoulders to wake him.
When Naruto's eyes open Haku removes her hands. "If you stay out here you will catch a cold." Haku says to Naruto. He nods his head.
"Thank you I must have fallen asleep yesterday." He says.
"So are you a ninja?" Haku asks pointing to the headband that's across his chest.
"Ya from the leaf village."
"So that must mean you're strong."
Naruto shakes his head. "While I am stronger than the people in my age group I'm not strong enough." He replies.
"What do you mean?"
"Let's just say I have a few promises that I need to keep, but I'm not strong enough right now."
"That must mean you have precious people?"
"Yes I do and if it wasn't for them I would be completely different right now." Naruto says.
"That's good I believe when someone has someone precious to them then they are truly strong." Haku says.
"Thank you that is a great belief. What is your name?"
"My name is Haku what is yours?"
"Mine is Naruto Uzumaki." Naruto then notices the basket.
"Do you need help collecting those flowers?" He asks.
"That would be helpful thanks." After the basket is full the two walk back to where they came.
Naruto's POV
I enter the house. "Where were you!" Yell Sakura.
"Out." I say.
"Kakashi was worried that something happened to you." She says.
"I just completed his jutsu and fell asleep." I say. I should learn kenjutsu if I want to use this. I think as I stare at the scroll.
"What you got there Naruto?" Kakashi asks. I look at him.
"I was think that I should learn kenjutsu since close hand combats is not my best then I should correct that." I say.
"That's a good thing to think about." He says.
"Do you know any kenjutsu?" I asks.
"Somewhat I'm not that great at it. When we get back to the village I can ask one of my friends if they can help you." He says. I nod my head and put the scroll back into my seal.
Three hours later
Tazuna and I come back from the bridge sight and that's when the others come inside from there training. "So Tazuna thinks it will be complete tomorrow." I tell Kakashi.
"Okay that's when Zabuza will strike he should be healed by then." He says. I nod my heads.
"Do you mind if I go outside and train then?" I asks.
"No you can just don't over do it." He says. I nod my head. I head to my normal spot. I make ten ice clones and ten shadow clones to watch so when they dispel I can latterly see three hundred and sixty degree of myself and what I can work on. I then take out Zabuza's blade. Five of them make ice swords while the other five have water puddles around them. If I'm going to be even slightly good with this blade then I'm going to have to get use to the weight of it. I think. I lift it with two hands and charge at the spare starts.
The swords team work together while the water team apply support and together they keep me from putting distance. It takes a few minutes until I can destroy one of the water team clone. I stop and I'm panting heavy. The others disappears and I reseal the sword. I need to work on my endurance to last longer and strength. I realize I head back to the house for dinner.
Dinner is quite. I pull out my book and start reading it as I eat. "The dinner was great." I say. I then take my plate to the kitchen to clean it.
"I'm going to go to bed to get ready for tomorrow." I say and head up stairs.
Naruto's mind.
"So you have one of the legendary seven swords of the mist." Kyuubi says.
"Yes do you know any kenjutsu." I asks.
"Well some but none that will help with that." he says.
"Well I want to learn how to use this blade but I don't know how." I tell him.
"Why not practice in here I mean go kenjutsu vs kenjutsu. I mean you won't have muscles memory but you would have the memory in your mind then outside you can work on it." He suggests.
"That's a great idea. Thank you." I says. I make twenty shadow clones. "Okay I want all of you to work on sword stances." I command they nod their heads and leave farther into the woods. I then make one ice clone. He raises his sword and I do the same. We nod our heads and the spar begins.
Ten hours later outside his mind
I open my eyes and the sun is shining. I look around and no one else is asleep. I trained too long in my head my body must have need me to sleep in to recover. I realize. I rush to get ready.
When I head down I see Tazuna's daughter by the kitchen sink. "Hello I must have slept in." I say to her. She nods her head and I exit the house as I head to the bridge. Please let me get there in time. If I'm not there the Sasuke has to fight the apprentice and he will let his pride take over.